Food Forest

The Crowning Achievement of Permaculture

Food forests are low-maintenance, regenerative food systems–in other words, once we have developed our food forest, the land will feed us without much input on our end. What's not to love?

The concept of a food forest is based upon the idea that in order to make the most of resources (ie. soil, water, sunlight), our designs should imitate those of nature. As shown in the diagram below, food forests are made up of eight main layers: the canopy, the small tree layer, the shrub layer, the herb layer, the rood layer, the ground cover layer, the vine layer, and the fungi layer.

We have now been working on our land for about one year, and while it will be years before we have a fully developed food forest, we are already enjoying hundreds of different varieties of produce (fruits, vegetables, spices, edible flowers) from our plants alone. Establishing a food forest may take a long time, but it pays off almost immediately after you begin the process.